As a professional home stager, you want your business to grow. That’s why you work hard for your clients, that’s why you invest time and resources into marketing, and that is the reason you invest into yourself in the form of education.

Here’s the reality: if you continue to apply proven principles and continue to learn from the experts who have “been there and done that”, your business will continue to grow. Now obviously, growth is a good thing! But it can also present challenges that you may not be expecting—and if you aren’t prepared, these challenges will jeopardize the future of your home staging business.

In order to prepare your staging business for growth, here are four questions  you must answer:

1)     Who will you hire? Let’s imagine over the course of the next week, your business is going to increase tenfold. Who will you have to hire in order to service these new clients? Will you need to hire a secretary, a full-time bookkeeper, or a marketing coordinator? For each of you, the answer to this question will be different as you each have different skillsets and therefore need help in different areas. It’s important you plan now—because by the time you desperately need to hire help, it’s too late to create a well thought-out plan.

2)     How will you maintain a high level of customer service? One of the main reasons many businesses in a variety of industries fail as they expand is that they lose sight of a crucial goal: providing customer service. When you have a small number of clients, it’s easy to provide great service. Who will you have to hire, and what systems will you implement in order to ensure  your customer service doesn’t deteriorate as you grow?

3)     How will you service increased demand systematically? As business picks up, you need to have an operational plan. Frantic, chaotic businesses inevitably experience disaster, sooner or later. Take the time right now to draw up an organizational system that will allow you to serve each client well—no matter how big you get. I can help you with this, so feel free to contact me today if you’d like guidance!

4)     How will you maintain your “big-picture” focus? It’s important to recognize that, as you become busier, you will be personally drawn more and more into the operations of your business. If you find yourself working for clients from sunrise to sunset each day, you’ll no longer have any time to focus on your business. As the business owner, if you’re not the one monitoring your market and responding to strategic challenges, nobody else will be! Continue to invest time on a weekly basis, working ON your business from a “big-picture” perspective.